Kingdom of France

State · 990–1791 CE · at its largest around 1791 CE

West Frankish kingdom ruled from 987 by the Capetian dynasty, which gradually extended royal power from its base around Paris over the great fiefs to build a centralised monarchy.

Its battles, in Battle View

On its lands while it lasted

Silk Road (c. 130 BCE – c. 1450 CE): A network of overland caravan routes linking China with Central Asia, Persia and the Mediterranean, along which silk, spices, horses, religions, technologies and diseases travelled for more than 1,500 years.
Council of Clermont (1095 CE): Pope Urban II called on Western Christians to aid Byzantium and take Jerusalem, launching the First Crusade.
First Crusade (1096–1099 CE): Answering Pope Urban II’s call, armies of western knights marched to Constantinople, crossed Anatolia, took Antioch after a long siege and captured Jerusalem in July 1099, founding the crusader states.
Great Zimbabwe (c. 1100–1450 CE): Stone-walled capital of a Shona kingdom that controlled gold trade with the Indian Ocean coast; its Great Enclosure is the largest ancient structure south of the Sahara.
Mongol sack of Baghdad (1258 CE): Mongol forces under Hulagu Khan captured and sacked Baghdad, killing the last Abbasid caliph in Baghdad and ending the Abbasid Caliphate there.
Mansa Musa (c. 1280 CE – 1337 CE): Ruler of the Mali Empire whose lavish pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324–25, carrying vast quantities of gold through Cairo, made Mali famous across the Mediterranean world.
Founding of the Ottoman state (c. 1299 CE): Osman I, leader of a Turkish principality in northwestern Anatolia, founded the dynasty whose state grew into the Ottoman Empire, which lasted until 1922.
Ibn Battuta’s travels: Maghreb, Arabia and East Africa (1325–1332 CE): The Moroccan scholar Ibn Battuta left Tangier on the hajj in 1325, visited Egypt, Syria, Mecca and Iraq, then sailed down the East African coast to Kilwa and back via Oman and the Persian Gulf. His Rihla records some 30 years of travel.
Ibn Battuta’s travels: Anatolia, India and China (1332–1346 CE): Ibn Battuta crossed Anatolia and the Black Sea to the Golden Horde, travelled via Bukhara to Delhi, where he served as a judge for years, then went via the Maldives and Sumatra to China, which he reached around 1345.
Timur (1336 CE – 1405 CE): Turco-Mongol conqueror born near Kesh (Shahrisabz) who built an empire from Anatolia to India, sacked Delhi in 1398 and made Samarkand his capital.
Black Death (1346–1353 CE): Bubonic plague pandemic that reached Europe through Mediterranean ports such as Messina in 1347 and killed an estimated third to half of Europe's population.
Voyages of Zheng He (1405–1433 CE): Admiral Zheng He led seven Ming treasure fleets of large ships through Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean to India, the Persian Gulf, Arabia and the Swahili coast of East Africa.
Rise of the Inca Empire (1438–1533 CE): Under Pachacuti from 1438 the Inca expanded from Cusco to rule Tawantinsuyu, the largest empire of the pre-Columbian Americas, stretching along the Andes.
Printing press (c. 1440 CE): Gutenberg's press with movable metal type made mass production of books possible, transforming the spread of knowledge in Europe.
Machu Picchu (c. 1450 CE): Inca citadel on a mountain ridge above the Urubamba Valley, built in the mid-15th century and abandoned around the Spanish conquest; a UNESCO World Heritage Site.